


Finding Home

by OceanTheSoulRebel



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Character Cameos - Freeform, Cate and Mateo really are idiots in love, F/M, OC heavy, all translation errors are my own, also: lets pretend I've been on a boat once or twice, it's so fluffy i wanna die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 16:43:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19009747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanTheSoulRebel/pseuds/OceanTheSoulRebel
Summary: After five years together, Cate and Mateo’s two-year contracts aboard the pirate ship The Song of the Sea ends. Mateo, ever the pragmatist, has some ideas of where to go after they dock for the final time… and a question.





	Finding Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [softlyue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyue/gifts).



> For Yue's birthday, a fic of our idiots in love. Yue, you are one of my dearest friends, fandom or not, and I just simply adore you. It’s been so lovely to know you for however long we’ve known each other. <3 <3 <3 Happy birthday, fren!

A heavy knock at the door jarred Mateo out of his sleep. He spasmed, arm flailing from its position around Cate to the dagger that still slept under his pillow. 

“Up and at ‘em, lovebirds!” cackled a sharp voice from outside.

“Fuck off, ‘Shari,” Mateo muttered, only half awake and already sinking back into whatever dream had escaped him. “Five more min’ts.”

Cate groaned beside him. “I think I might actually hate that woman.”

“That’s not true.” Mateo curled Cate’s sleepy self closer against his chest and nosed at the hair at her nape. “You’re just grumpy.”

“Mmphf.” Cate sighed and shifted as Mateo kissed up her neck. “We have to get up.”

He smiled against her neck. “Five more minutes,” he whispered lowly. His hand slid up under the light fabric of her sleep shirt, one of his stolen tunics, and stroked at the curve of her hip. “Maybe ten.”

Another knock sounded at the door, heavier and more pointed.

“Okay. Now  _I_  might hate her,” Mateo groaned. He huffed and grudgingly allowed Cate to untangle herself from him and their blankets.

“See? I told you.” Cate came to her feet gracefully. The fluidity of her motions reminded him at once of both the jungle cats of Rivain with their deadly elegance and the first months of Cate’s employ upon the Song of the Sea, where she had looked for all the world like a newborn foal--all gangly legs and skittering balance.

The way she eyed him now, though, her blue gaze peering at him from under sooty lashes and hooded lids, was all desire demon.

Cate stretched her arms up over her head and began her morning routine. Mateo watched the hem of his stolen shirt crest and fall through her movements; it hid and revealed the swell of her hips and the gentle softness of her belly with each shift, her skin sun-kissed to a light gold by the sun.

She snorted and rolled her eyes at his obvious staring. “See anything you like?”

“Very much,” Mateo answered. Cate bent in such a way that pushed her chest and hips out, arms behind her in a long arc. “Definitely, yeah.”

“Pervert.”

“You’re beautiful.”

“Still,” she countered. “Make yourself useful and help me, please?”

Mateo shook his head and rose, stepping out of his pants as he crossed the short distance to her. She offered her right hand in silence, watching him, and with a smile, he kissed every knuckle before he began kneading at her palm. His touch was light, and he waited for each hissed breath and sharp inhale as he worked the tension from her hands.

It was a lifetime’s improvement over how their mornings went when they had first started working together. She had been a wounded, scared,  _proud_  woman five years ago when Mateo and Cate had been thrown together. Her hands had been mangled beyond belief in ways that Mateo couldn’t dream of even in his worst nightmares. It was only by the grace of the Inquisitor’s Surgeon Hennig, with her sharp mind and freakish need to actually help people recover, that Cate and Mateo survived the process of rehabilitating Cate’s injuries.

Looking back on the journey that brought them to this moment, Mateo couldn’t say he’d change a single thing.

“There,” he finally murmured when he finished. He rubbed his hands over Cate’s own and pressed warmth into her thin fingers, her hands so pale against his darker skin. Mateo retrieved her silverite bracers from the crate that served as table, chest, and chair in their small berth. Gingerly, he slid the gleaming rings to bracket each knuckle and clasped the molded plates around her wrists.

“Thank you,  _amatus,_ ” Cate sighed. She flexed her hands with a smile as the enchantments awoke to the touch of her magic. “You always make it so easy.”

Mateo snorted. “You thought I was trying to kill you when we first started,” he reminded her drily.

“… well, Sister Nightingale was doing her best to be terrifying. You see why I was nervous.” Cate’s smile turned sultry as she raked her gaze down Mateo’s naked form. “But no more talk about Leliana, or the Inquisition, or the bad days.” She closed the gap between them, snaking her hands up his bare chest. “There’s something else I’d rather think about,” she purred.

He preened under her watchful eye. “Yeah?”

“Yeah… trouncing Yshari when we spar this afternoon.” A brilliant grin broke over her face. “We need to get topside.”

Mateo sputtered when Cate laughed and danced away to get dressed. “You’re really living up to that evil Tevene magister thing, you know.“ He caught her by the hips and pulled her back to him, bending easily to kiss her. “Tease,” he murmured against her lips. “How about you make it up to me?”

She rolled her eyes with a smile. “Fine, sit down,” Cate said, pushing him to collapse onto the mattress again. She crawled behind him and settled on her knees. "How many braids today?”

“Eh, maybe just one down the middle?” Mateo hummed lightly when Cate ran her fingers through the short shear of his undercut to wrangle his hair. “Just need it out of the way, really. Keth threatened to shave me in my sleep.”

Cate began weaving his long tresses into an elegant plait, working slowly from front to back. “He knows he’d never make it through the door, yes?”

“I tried telling him that. Honestly, it’s like he’s never seen you at work. That man could miss a Hinterlands bear with it gnawing on his face! Good thing he’s the bosun and not the Captain, I’d hate to see that arrangement.”

She tugged his hair. “Now you’ve jinxed it.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna regret saying that one.” He leaned into the touch of her hands as she finished the braid. “Man knows his way around a ship but Dios _mio,_  his people skills suck.”

“Good thing he has such a good assistant to help. I’m heading up top.” Cate leaned forward and pressed a line of kisses along the tapered edge of Mateo’s ear. “I’ll see you soon.”

“I’ll miss you every moment,  _mi tesoro, mi precioso._  I shall ache as I think on your name, unable to even dream of your face. The sun will never shine as bright until I see you again, and—”

Cate laughed as she shut the door behind her. Mateo grinned to himself and shook off the last of sheep’s lethargic embrace and readied for the day.

===

The sun shone high over the Amaranthine Ocean, the water as blue as the finest sapphires in the aftermath of last night’s storm. The waves dashed up against Mateo stared out over the water, arms wrapped tightly into the net of the sail’s rigging.

“Skirtin’ awfully close to Tevinter, eh? How’s your wifey feel about that?”

“Will you shut up!” Mateo hissed. He tore his eyes from the horizon to glare down at Yshari. “I haven’t asked her yet.”

“You know she’ll say yes, so why wait?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Yshari cackled. “Boy, I’ve known you since you were still wet behind the ears and taught you all you know—”

“That’s definitely not true,” Mateo drawled, “we signed on with Isabela the same day.”

“—I’d say I’m owed some juicy gossip. Now come down here and spill, you know I hate heights.”

“Well, maybe that’s why I’m up here, then,” Mateo quipped. “Ever think of that?”

Yshari shook her head and leaned against the netted rigging. “You’re an idiot. An idiot in love. Now tell meeeee.”

“I just—you know—it’s… “

“Use your words, Teo.”

“I’m _trying,_  thanks.” Mateo untangled himself from the ropes and scaled down to the deck. “What if she doesn’t like my parents, ‘Shari? Or they don’t like her? What if I bring her home and she’s so miserable that she can’t stand to stay? She was an Altus, you know,” Mateo sighed. “Even though it’s been years since she left Tevinter, she’s got to be… I don’t know, used to living like that. We’re just a low-class, mixed-up family from Treviso. She and I retired from the Inquisition to live like dirty pirates—”

“Hey!” Yshari interrupted, swatting at Mateo’s shoulder affectionately.

“—but she’s a  _Merula,_ and I’m—”

“—the most idiotic man on this ship, is what you are,” Yshari intoned. She grabbed Mateo by the forearms and shook him. “Anyone with eyes can see she’s crazy about you. Maybe a little crazy in general–hey, I’ve seen her in a fight, she’s amazing and terrifying–but that’s what it is. But Teo, come on. If she decides that no, she’ll hold off for someone better, I’m sure we can… I don’t know. Toss her off the side of the ship or something. But she won’t say no, I’m sure of it. You’re being an idiot.”

“…maybe,” Mateo finally said, grudgingly. He looked across the ship to where Cate worked with the artillery master, her dark hair tied back in a rough tail, and a familiar warmth bloomed in his chest. “But I want to have her meet Mamae and Papae first before I ask. Give her a chance, you know?”

Yshari scoffed. “Overrated. Sentimental, but overrated. But,” she sighed, “love makes fools of even the best of us, so I guess it would of you, too.”

It was Mateo’s turn to squawk indignantly. He shook his head. “You think so, huh?”

She rolled her eyes. “Look, Teo, you’re like a brother to me, so know that I say this with love: pull your head out of your ass already and just do it. It doesn’t matter whether your parents accept her, or if she likes them. You two have been through demons and rifts and near scuttling of the damn ship together. If Cate can take all that, she can deal with you. You both can.”

“Aww,” Mateo said, tone flippant despite the heat of real affection pricking at his eyes, “you  _do_ care!” He pulled Yshari in for a hug; she stiffened only to grudgingly return it, thumping him on the back with her fist before pulling away. “Thanks, ‘Shari. I needed that.”

“Yeah, well, I need you not to squish the air outta me. I’ve gotta use those lungs later, you know. The wind doesn’t whistle itself. Now I think I heard the bosun looking for you, you’d best get on that.”

Mateo grinned. “I know you just want to get rid of me so you can be all mushy in private. Don’t worry,” he cooed, turning away to go find Keth, “your secret’s safe with me.” He laughed at the gust of wind that ruffled his braid and clothes.

“You’re dead to me,” came Yshari’s shout. “You hear that? Dead!”

His laughter drew the attention of his colleagues, but Mateo didn’t care. Worries abated, he felt he could float on the wind all by himself, no magic needed.

===

The exchange in Alam went smoothly, or as smoothly as it could. Seheron was still considered a war zone, but people needed supplies, war or no war. Admiral Isabela had been reluctant to come so close to Par Vollen and the Qunari strongholds north of the Tevinter Imperium, but they hadn’t been attacked, and Isabela hadn’t had reason to leave the ship while in Qunari-controlled waters. She usually made a big fuss about playing captain and showing off at other ports; Isabela was quiet, instead, urging the helmsman to take them out of port as soon as the tide and Yshari’s wind magic could allow. No one was allowed off the ship as they waited.

Which suited Mateo and Cate just fine, holed up in their small berth, lost in each other.

“You know what today means?” he whispered against her skin, his hands tracing the knobby line of her spine.

She stirred above him. “What?”

“This is our last job with the _Song._ ” Cate pulled up at his words, bracing her weight on her forearms atop Mateo’s chest. “We can go do whatever else we want.”

“Our contracts are over already?” Her brows pulled into a slight vee and she frowned. “I can’t believe it’s been two years.”

Mateo leaned up to kiss the corner of her mouth, teasing the tension away. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

“Is that what this is, then?”

“Fun and work, it can be both,” he said, grinning. “We can go… anywhere, really, once we hit Antiva. I have some loose ends to tie up if we want to travel more, but the world is our oyster, Cate. We can do anything we want now.”

Cate smiled, and it was so beautiful and lovely that his heart threatened to burst out of his chest. “And what do you want to do now?” she asked. “What grand plans lay in wait for this great oyster,  _amatus/_?”

“Well…”

“Well?”

“I have some money in Treviso,” he murmured. Mateo trailed his fingers along the planes of Cate’s back, her skin still hot from their earlier exertions. “We could go there, stay for a bit while I get my banking in order. There are some supposedly great real estate opportunities if we wanted to live there. Antiva City, too, if Treviso’s too small or, or, or provincial.”

“Teo—”

“Or we could return to Ferelden if we want. We’ve got some leverage there, still, enough to carve out a little life to ourselves.”

_“Amatus—”_

Mateo hurried, cutting off Cate’s response. “We could hit Orlais. Nevarra. Rivain, if we wanted, though Mamae’s clan is wholly nomadic, so we might not like that.”

Cate laughed, her breath tickling along his cheek. “I am tired of wandering, Mateo. I was a ranking soldier in the Imperial Army, then a warrior of the Inquisition, then a soldier among pirates. I’m tired. Let us settle somewhere,” she murmured. She kissed down the firm line of his jaw, mouthed at his throat, teased at the sharp edges of his ear. “You could ask me what you really want.”

Mateo gulped. “I don’t know what you mean.”

She smiled and worried his earlobe between her teeth, drawing a low groan from him. “I mean,” she purred, “you have a question grander than where we shall live. Ask me, Mateo. We promised honesty to one another.”

“I—I can’t do that when you do that,  _vhenan,_ ” he protested weakly. “Can’t even think.”

Cate stilled and it was almost worse than when she moved against him. “Well. Can’t have that.”

And with a twist she rolled away, taking the thin, scratchy sheet along and wrapping it like a fine sundress around her middle.

Mateo threw his hand over his eyes, willing his body to calm from her tempting ministrations so cruelly interrupted. “You’re a mean woman, Cadencia,” he protested, though there was no sharpness to it, only the soft roll of her name on his tongue. “Might have to believe all that propaganda about the evils that Tevinter mages inflict upon poor elves.”

“You’re exactly as elven as I am!” Cate sputtered.

“Yeah, but you were raised over there,” he said, “so it’s different. And plus, I’m more obviously elfy. Sera told me so.”

“Ugh. Sera. She was so… “

“‘Fun?’ Is that the word you’re looking for?”

He imagined the tight line of Cate’s mouth. “That’s certainly  _a_  word,” came her stilted reply.

Mateo laughed. He shifted to sit up against the wall, the wooden bulkhead cool against his back. “Come here, my heart,” he murmured, arms wide and hands grabbing for her, and for a moment she regarded him coolly, calmly, before grinning and falling back to the bed. “Honesty, hmm?”

Cate drew the sheet-dress up around her hips and settled in his lap, regal as any queen. “Honesty,” she said primly.

He peppered soft kisses over the bare lines of her collarbones. “Okay,” he murmured, hands settling on her hips. “Do you love me?”

“Of course,” she muttered when he scraped his teeth over her skin. Her hands dug into the meat of his shoulders, her nails sharp and the bracers magically cold.

“Do you want me?” He rolled his hips and dragged her down against his body.

“Ye-eh-ess.” The word drew out on a hiss and she rocked into him shamelessly as if to prove her answer.

“Will you marry me?” He pulled his mouth from the temptation of her throat to study her face, flushed red with growing excitement and stunned into shocked silence.

“Ye— _Teo_!”

Mateo shifted, pressing Cate backward into the thin mattress of their cot. Her blue eyes bloomed with surprise as he bracketed her with his arms. “The last five years have been the strangest fucking years of my life, but they brought me to you. Even with the sky broken and the world ending, even with us at each other’s throats at the beginning, I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.” 

His voice shook as he spoke. “Will you, Cadencia Merula, marry me? Forever and always, just us, wherever we are. Orlais, Nevarra, bloody Ferelden, I would live with you anywhere.” Mateo gingerly brought a hand up to brush a wayward lock of hair from Cate’s face. “Anywhere, Cate, because you are my home. Forever.”

“Yes,” she said, and tears pooled in her eyes. “Yes, for a thousand lifetimes,  _yes,_  you stupid man, now let me up so I can kiss you properly!”

Cate surged up to push him back against the wall with a dull thud and Mateo’s heart pounded rabbit-fast in his chest at the way she eyed him, all predatory grace and promise when she draped herself against him.

_“Vhenan, mi corazón, para siempre.”_

“Forever,  _amatus_ ,” she agreed, sealing the promise with a hungry kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I appreciate comments and kudos, and strive to answer them all! 
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr: [@Ocean-In-My-Rebel-Soul](https://ocean-in-my-rebel-soul.tumblr.com/)  
> Follow me on Twitter: [@OceanSoulRebel](https://twitter.com/Ocean_SoulRebel)


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